Britain's Muslims See Bias in State Aid Program for Schools

Britain's Muslims See Bias in State Aid Program for Schools

Article excerpt

A MUSLIM school with 180 elementary-age pupils has become a test
case of Britain's official policy of treating all ethnic and
religious communities equally.

Groups representing the country's 2 million Muslims are accusing
the government of discriminating against their faith by refusing to
provide state funds to a prestigious Islamic educational
institution while giving thousands of Christian private schools
financial support.

The Islamia School in Brent, north of London, was founded 10
years ago by Yusef Islam, the former 1960s pop singer and composer
once known as Cat Stevens, after he became a Muslim. Since then Mr.
Islam has kept the school afloat with his private fortune.

Muslims regard the school as the best Islamic teaching
institution in the country. It has a waiting list of 1,000.
Competition for places is so fierce that many children's names are
listed at birth.

In Britain, schools outside the state system can qualify for
government funding if they meet the education department's criteria
on curriculum and teaching standards. There are currently 2,000
Anglican, 2,100 Roman Catholic, 21 Jewish, and four Methodist
state-aided schools in Britain.

When John Patten, the education secretary, visited Brent last
June, staff at the school demonstrated to him that the school was
meeting the government criteria. In addition, five hours a week is
spent on traditional Islamic teaching in Arabic, including study of
the Koran.

Mr. Patten said he was "deeply impressed" with the school's
educational standard. But two months later Patten's department
turned down Islamia's application for state funds. It was the
school's second rejection.

In announcing the rejection on Aug. 19, Baroness Blatch,
Patten's deputy, reaffirmed the grounds of the previous rejection:
that the Brent area has a large number of vacant school places.

Her decision was immediately attacked by Ghulam Sarwar, director
of the Muslim Educational Trust, who called it "unjust and
insensitive."

Islam, who says state funding is necessary because he can no
longer afford to support the school, accused the government of
"malicious prejudice" against Britain's Islamic community.

MORE is at stake in the Islamia School controversy than money.
The 1988 Education Reform Act requires that state schools should
"reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Britain are, in
the main, Christian," although account should be taken of "the
teaching and practices of other principal religions. …